Lacie
by Zaryenna
Summary: Reo teaches Echo how to play a song on the piano. Just friendship and fluff.


**A/N: This is an attempt to fill my own prompt... :) I kinda diverged a bit from my original prompt, but that's ok, because I'm the one who wrote that prompt, so it's not like I'm meeting anyone else's expectations. xD Enjoy! :)**

**Lacie  
~Zary~ **

Echo walked down the hallway of the Nightray manor. She felt so discouraged—with the way things had been going lately. And all she really wanted was to make Vincent-sama happy. He had given her a day off again for being obedient, and whereas before she might have looked for Oz, she felt incredibly worthless and pitiful and did not want him to see her this way.

So she wandered aimlessly around the corridors, and hoped to find something to make her feel even slightly better about herself. Noise had come out recently as well—and she had been punished gravely for that, even if the inward blame and guilt she felt overwhelmingly might have already punished her enough.

No—Vincent-sama knew best how to punish her.

She stopped at the library, and continued wandering around the many bookshelves there. She knew a day would not be enough to read anything she wanted to read, and she didn't particularly want to start or continue reading anything either. She was so . . . so pathetic. Echo sighed, and sat down against a bookshelf, and she curled her legs under her body in the protective position she had made a habit of.

Worthless. Why did her master even keep her around? No—Vincent-sama had his reasons, and they were absolute.

"Echo," greeted a familiar voice.

Startled, Echo glanced up to see a shade of black hair covering a face, further hidden by glasses. He held a book in one hand, and had stopped mid-stride. "L-Leo-san," she said and nodded a greeting in return. Elliot's servant. Sometimes she wondered if Elliot would be a better—no.

"How are you?" Leo asked politely.

"Echo is well."

Leo shook his head as if to scold her. "I don't think so, Echo," he said in a softer and kinder voice than Echo was used to hearing. "Libraries were made for reading, not for hiding as you seem to be doing. Then again, it's also none of my business. I'm sorry."

He began to walk away again, and Echo felt strangely lonely. Even him acknowledging her presence had been enough to lift her heart just that tiny bit—most people would never so much as greet a mere servant like her—but somehow she felt . . . as if . . . he was like her. In a small way. Both servants.

Except he was definitely better than she at many things. She watched as he started to turn the corner. "Wait," she said without thinking. He stopped and looked at her, and what she had said caught up with her. Blushing slightly, Echo frowned and looked away. "May Echo come with you?"

"Of course." He smiled kindly. "Where to?"

"Ah," she said, startled. She didn't have an answer. Truthfully, Echo really just wanted to be with someone—because she felt so lonely and unwanted, and Vincent-sama only gave her days off when he wanted to get rid of her, and she _hated _herself for that. These thoughts raced through her mind, and before she realized it she had completely abandoned the conversation, Leo had already knelt down beside her and tugged at her arm. Confused, Echo simply stared at him.

"Come on."

He helped her stand up, and as always, the physical contact made her uncomfortable and she pulled away from his grip. Still, she followed him to one of the back corners of the library, where they sat down, and Leo offered her a book. Echo shook her head at the sight of so many pages that she would never be able to finish reading, and Leo, with only a pleasant shrug, started to read the book instead.

It was very much alike to the other times they had met. How, when they had nothing better to do, they might meet each other somewhere by chance. And read—side by side. With hardly any words besides greetings. And sometimes, in the horrible mess Echo continuously drove herself into, that she refused to even consider anyone's but her fault—Echo maybe considered Leo—as a friend?

Both servants, both intelligent, both loners. Leo was far better than Echo in all aspects, of course, but she saw his performance as a goal she could strive to obtain. And now—amidst the chaos and hurt and sorrow—maybe, just maybe, being with another live human being, similar to her, would be enough for now. Somehow.

She stared at him for a long time, wanting to speak but also fearing that he would be angry at being interrupted from his reading. Soon, though, much to Echo's humiliation, Leo noticed her ever-watching eyes, and shut the book gently. "You seem sad," he said in a straightforward but not unkind tone.

Echo immediately took control of her expression and forced the usual dullness and numbness. "Echo was given an unwanted day off again," she explained in a monotonous voice. "So—Echo is just bored."

"You could read like you usually do," Leo offered.

"No. I'm . . ." She curled closer to her legs, back pressed against the wall with hunched shoulders. "I just want to go back and serve him, even though he'll . . . he'll be angry at Echo for being in the way."

The smile on his face began to melt the ice encasing Echo's heart, and she suddenly just wanted to _feel _where she usually couldn't, and let this person, who was like her, know how she _felt_.

"So you're going to mope around instead?" he asked. He set the book on the ground to stand and then held out a hand.

Echo took it, only to be courteous, and stood shyly.

"Come. I have a solution in mind."

He led her away from the library, down the halls, to a place Echo had never been before. In fact, at some point, she wondered if Vincent-sama had purposefully never had her go there before because he knew whatever Leo wanted to show her might make her happier—no. Vincent-sama would not do that. Echo clenched her fist, and gritted her teeth, and followed Leo.

He stopped just before a door, and opened it slowly. Echo glanced inside, and saw an empty room with a large object she couldn't immediately identify sitting in the center. At Leo's signal, she entered the room, and cautiously approached the bench in front of the—the—pi—piano. Yes, it was a piano.

Surprised, Echo glanced back to Leo, who had followed behind her quietly. A smile still adorned his features, and he gestured again for her to sit on the bench.

"N-no," she said without thinking, and then apologetically bowed her head. "I mean . . . Echo doesn't know how to play the piano. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," he said, and sat down on the bench himself. He patted the space beside him, and waited. "Echo—don't you think your master would like to hear you play?"

Immediately, her emotions shut down, and she methodically sat down next to Leo on the bench, because she had no other choice where Vincent-sama was involved, and it would be pointless to refuse an offer that might make Vincent-sama happy, and Noise would do it without a second thought, so she should do it, and before she knew it, she was lost in her head, and only her body remained in the motion.

"Echo."

She jolted alert to see Leo slightly shaking her shoulder. "Ah, sorry," she said.

"Don't apologize," Leo said again, and if it was anybody else, she might have been laughed at. "I'm going to teach you a simple song. It'll make you feel better, and even if not, it'll pass the time. Okay?"

Silently Echo stared at the intimidating black and white keys before her, and watched as Leo began to play the beautiful song that he would teach her. It was simple—she had heard him play before—but the graceful way his fingers moved, and the beautiful sound it made—Echo could never hope to do so. And she felt as if she were shrinking while everything else was growing, and she couldn't—bear—it.

"Okay, your turn."

Echo shook her head. "I'll never be able to play the piano. I'll never . . ." . . . be as good as anyone at anything.

"Sure you can," he said, and reached for her hands. She flinched slightly at the touch, but allowed him to lift her hands onto the keys. Her fingers lingered over them nervously, and he had her adjust her hands into the correct position.

Echo breathed deeply, and he taught her the notes slowly. One hand at a time. And each time she forgot or messed up the note, she felt worse and worse, plummeting down a deep, black hole. What would Vincent-sama think of her—what would everyone think of her—they would laugh at her mistakes, and she would be so embarrassed.

She started making more mistakes, and her confidence lowered further, and more mistakes, and more mistakes, and—finally Leo stopped her. "Echo, what are you so afraid of?"

She gasped at the question, because it depicted her emotion so perfectly. Afraid. And she shouldn't have said it, she shouldn't have, but, she wanted to so badly, "I'm afraid that people will laugh at me," she whispered. And from there, her emotions finally broke lose. She struggled against the onslaught of tears almost overtaking her. "I—I'm not good at anything," she cried, desperately wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. They weren't supposed to be there. She wasn't supposed to be sad! "And—Echo doesn't want . . . Vincent-sama to know. Echo is so scared—of him—laughing—or sc-scolding, and . . ."

She cried into her hands, afraid of Leo now—of him making fun of her. She couldn't look at him. And with each passing second, the fear grew worse, because he hadn't moved or said anything. Finally, she removed her hands to look at him, and saw him smiling at her, as he had the moment they had crossed paths this morning. The kindness had never faded.

"That all?" he asked, and in _his _voice, it was _so caring_.

Echo nodded.

"I'll make you a promise," he said. "Whatever happens in this room will stay in this room forever. Nobody will ever know if you messed up, except me. And I'm not laughing, right?"

She nodded again, and a strange, uncommon feeling swept over her heart. The same as with Oz-sama. And she wondered—how it never had occurred around her master, and only around certain people. Leo, someone she hardly knew—and she felt the strangest sensation to smile, even though she was used to that eery, false smiling from Vincent-sama, and she knew _that_ smiling was wrong. But . . . she lifted her arms to play the song again and still wanted to smile.

Soon Leo had her put the tunes both of her hands had learned together, and it took a long, long time, and the sun was setting out the window, before she had mastered it. But she _had _mastered it, and she felt free from just a small part of the cloud lurking over her head. She played the song one last time.

And by then, they were joking, and he was laughing—not at her, but at things which should be laughed at—and she was glad she had the day off to spend time with someone who could lift her spirits without asking unwanted questions, or giving unwanted advice for her situation.

She had to leave though. Or Vincent-sama would be angry, and she was afraid—no, not afraid, she just wanted him to be happy, not angry. Why—why did she keep thinking the wrong thing. Why!

The cloud returned.

They had left the bench, and approached the door, and Echo bowed politely. "Th-thank you, Leo-san," she said, as the odd numbness appeared again.

She turned to leave, when Leo put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She inwardly winced, and out of habit, prepared for the inevitable strike of his hand. It never came. Of course it never came. It was Leo. He just stared at her for the longest time, then finally, he sighed and released her.

"Please remember, no one can hear your thoughts, Echo," Leo said. "Not even your master." Then he nodded a farewell, and left before her.

Echo stood, dumbly staring at the place he had been before, before finally sinking to the floor and crying. In this room, nothing would leave. No one would ever know. So she cried for the second time that day, all alone, and appreciated the solitude, and didn't mind that Vincent-sama would be so angry as she noticed the sun set, and the moon high in the sky. And she wanted to think everything, and say nothing, because maybe then Vincent-sama and her feelings could come to terms with each other.

Because even if she hated lying, it was better than the way she felt—the contradictions, the pain in her chest, the throbbing in her head. Frustration, repeatedly, pounding her body—frustration that she just _didn't understand_. But she could think this, and do something else, and show something else, and say something else, and maybe then . . .

Since no one could hear her thinking . . .

Maybe then, it would be okay.

She rose to the piano, and played the song—she had never even asked the name of—one last time, before wiping away her tears, and closing the door softly behind her, as she left. Vincent-sama—she loved him, liked him, disliked him, _hated him_. She needed to be as far away from him as possible. She wanted to be as close to him as possible. She let the thoughts take whatever direction they wanted, as she slowly made her way back to him.

As she always did.

And she felt free again—in her prison.

_Nee, Echo . . . That little boy lied to you. __**I**__ can hear everything you're thinking. Every moment. And __**I'll **__be nice. I promise. I'll tell Vincent everything you're thinking, and everything you've thought. So go ahead. Try it. As much as you want. Because the more he'll __**hate**__ you when I tell him, the more he'll __**love**__ me._

"Elliot?"

"Heh?"

"I really wish you'd talk to Vincent about his servant."


End file.
